


Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

by thisstarvingartist



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Blowjobs, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Preseries, i finally finished this mofo, it took so long, ive been writing this since i finished the last one, may include parts of the book, my second rd fic, reading of the book deemed unnecessary by the author, sex happens, sorry im slow, there is kissing, though highly recommended at some point bc its awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 05:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2417459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstarvingartist/pseuds/thisstarvingartist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The man in the navy-blue officer’s coat and the blatantly false moustache flagged down Lister’s hopper and got in."</p>
<p>In which Dave Lister is a taxi driver on Mimas and Arnold Rimmer is just as awkward as usual. Just give it a try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I borrowed the scene in which Lister and Rimmer met for the first time and expanded upon that--greatly. Every part actually included in the book is bolded. In case you haven’t read the book Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers or any of my other fic, this is your warning: this story involves slight amounts of secondhand embarrassment, sexual content and (in this particular part, at least) fake moustaches. So if any of these things offend you, I suggest not reading onward. If, however, you ship Rimster with the fierce passion that I do, and you enjoy a little fluff with your smut, please continue. (quick vocab check: hoppers are pretty much bouncing taxis and brothels are whorehouses. Mimas is the moon orbiting Jupiter that Lister and Rimmer are currently on.)
> 
> (second author's note: i wrote this almost 2 years ago and just realized it was finished. my bad. if it sucks, that's why.)

**The man in the navy-blue officer’s coat and the blatantly false moustache flagged down Lister’s hopper and got in.**

**“A hundred-and-fifty-second and third,” he said curtly, and pressed the tash, which was hanging down on the right side, back into place.**

**“Going to a brothel?” asked Lister amiably.**

**“Absolutely not,” said the man in the blue officer’s coat; “I’m an officer in the Space Corps” -- he tapped the gold bars on his lapel -- “and I do not frequent brothels.”**

Lister raised an eyebrow at him through the mirror, turning in his seat to get a better look at the man. He was long-limbed and thin, with thick brown curls on the top of his head that he had somehow wrangled into submission and a large nose with wide, conspicuous nostrils. He made intense, near accusatory eye contact with Lister, his eyes a startlingly brilliant mix of hazel and brown, the likes of which Lister had never seen before.

**“I just thought, what with a hundred-and-fifty-second and third being slap bang in the middle of the red light area…”** Lister trailed off pointedly. The man huffed at him, his already large nostrils flaring even wider.

**“Well, you’re not paid to think. You’re paid to drive.”**

Lister faced the windshield again, rolling his eyes; he’d dealt with people like this fellow before on Mimas. He wasn’t sure if it was the moon, or the fact that he was posing as a rather slobby taxi driver that made every passenger so snooty and easily displeased, but he’d gotten used to it. **Lister flicked on the ‘Hired’ sign, slipped the hopper into jump and bounced off to the district the locals affectionately called ‘Shag Town’.**

**On the first landing, the officer’s moustache was jolted almost clear of his face.**

**“What the smeg’s wrong with the suspen--” his head disappeared into the soft felting of the cab’s roof “--sion…?!” He bounced back down into the seat.**

**“It’s the roads,” Lister lied.**

“I’m sure,” the man replied haughtily, fixing his moustache. It took a surprising amount of willpower for Lister not to snicker at him. Six months driving stolen hoppers around the shadier Mimian hangouts had led him to meet some rather unusual people, but never had one of them been wearing such horribly tacky facial hair. It didn’t even match his natural hair color.

It was worth mentioning that Lister had the tendency to become a rather distracted driver, and the show being put on in his back seat didn’t make it any easier for him to focus. Every time they landed the man--whom Lister dubbed Moustache in his head--would launch back out of his seat, slam his head into the ceiling, and land with a _whump_ , making a new and hilarious face every time. One landing was so particularly heavy that he was thrown forward into the front of the hopper, nearly smacking his face on the windshield.

“Holy smeg!” Moustache shouted, scrambling into the passenger seat and hurriedly buckling the seatbelt. Lister looked over at him incredulously. What the smeg was he doing? Lister wasn’t definitively certain about taxi driving rules on Mimas, but he was fairly sure that unknown passengers were not supposed to ride shotgun. Before he could say as much, however, Moustache matched his horrified stare, grabbing desperately at the car handle overhead.

“Keep your eyes on the road!” he shouted at Lister, just as another hopper launched in front of them. Lister slammed on the breaks, the hopper barely skidding to a halt before the other vehicle’s heavy plated feet landed directly where they would have been, then launched off again, ignorant of the havoc it had nearly caused.

Lister leaned out the window, waving angrily at the quickly exiting hopper. “Watch where you’re driving, would ya?!”

He pulled his head back into the hopper, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. He’d almost died. _They’d_ almost died. He risked a glance over at Moustache. Said article was currently horribly askew on the man’s face, and his eyes were blown wide, pupils dilated and cheeks flushed with terror.

“Jesus smegging Christ,” He gasped, scrabbling at the door handle. “There’s no smegging way I’m staying in this hopper a moment longer. Let me out, dammit!”

“No way,” Lister refused, pointing out the window. “We’re approaching a high-traffic area; you’ll be squashed in seconds if you get out now.”

“Die out there or in this taxi with you, that’s what you’re telling me,” Moustache leaned back in his seat, groaning loudly. “What rotten luck.”

“You don’t mind if I keep driving, then?” Lister demanded, feeling put out by Moustache’s words. Moustache waved him on. While Lister pulled the hopper back into gear, he watched Moustache hurriedly rebuckle his seat belt. Lister didn’t very much like seat belts in hoppers. Personally, if he were to careen mid air into another vehicle--or nearly get squashed by one--he’d much rather have the time to try and throw himself out the window.

As they approached a hundred-and-fifty-second and third, Lister began drifting back into his own little world. It was a bad habit for a driver, but he honestly couldn’t much help it. They passed several corner hookers, who waved and whistled saucily at them. Lister waved back at a few.

Lister hadn’t visited any of the brothels on Mimas in the six months he’d been there. It wasn’t that he thought he was too good to visit one, but kind of the reverse-- he couldn’t afford to do so. What little money he managed to make by driving hoppers was usually spent on food (and by food, Lister means alcohol) and shelter (and by shelter, Lister means more alcohol), which left no money left over for recreational things, like prostitutes. Lister thought this rather unfortunate, since he also didn’t have time to flirt with anyone, and as a result hadn’t had sex in over six months. If he’d left himself any time to think about it, Lister may have noticed how sexually frustrated he had been lately. He was a young, sprightly twenty-five year old man with a healthy libido; he was also firmly comfortable in his undefined sexuality, and thus unsurprised at finding the man in the passenger seat of the stolen hopper not entirely unattractive. Sans fake moustache, of course.

“Er… what’s your name, then?” Lister asked casually. Moustache turned his head to glance at him, his left eyebrow arched.

“Who needs to know?”

“Well I don’t _need_ to, I just thought I’d--”

“Well, kindly refrain from doing it again, thank you,” Moustache said haughtily.  Lister rolled his eyes.

“Alright, fine then.” Lister managed to keep his mouth shut and his eyes on the road for a good two minutes after that; however, silence was not something Lister was particularly good with.

“Lister,” he told him.

“What was that?” Moustache asked.

“My name; it’s Lister. David Lister.”

There was a long period of silence.

“Toadhunter,” Moustache said finally.

“Really?” Lister asked.

“Yes, really,” Toadhunter replied, crossing his arms over his chest. Lister, who prided himself on his ability to tell when someone was lying, was quite certain that Toadhunter was not his passenger’s real name-- but it was something to work with, at least. Better than Moustache, anyway.

“What are you smirking at?” Toadhunter asked suspiciously. Lister shrugged.

“I was just thinking that, you know; Toadhunter, I suppose it’s a bit better a name than what I was thinking of you as before.”

“And what might that have been, if I dare ask?”

“Moustache.” Toadhunter looked sincerely surprised. Lister laughed good-naturedly.

“What’d you think I was calling you?” Lister inquired. Toadhunter shrugged neutrally.

“Something more rude than moustache. I suppose it was… accurate enough, though.” He petted the moustache self consciously.

_What a strange guy,_ Lister thought to himself, pulling his gaze back to the road. _Kinda quirky; but in a cute way._

“So, if you’re not visiting for the brothels, what’s bringing you to this leg of the neighborhood?” Lister asked. “It isn’t exactly renowned for anything else.”

“Er… I’ll have you know, this part of Mimas is quite well known throughout the JMC for its authentic Mimian cuisine.”

“Yeah, I’m sure there are plenty of succulent dishes available around here,” Lister replied as he parked the hopper on the corner of a hundred-fifty-second and third. Toadhunter glared at him as he trifled through his purse for cash. Lister leaned forward slightly, noticing that it was monogrammed with the name Arnold J--

“Excuse me,” Arnold said hotly, pulling the purse out of visual range. “What exactly are you trying to get a look at?”

“Nothing, just admiring the nice leather purse you’ve got there.”

“Well don’t get any ideas,” he spat, looking rather irked.

“Hey man, I wasn’t thinking about stealing your wallet. I just wanted to know your name.”

“I told you, my name is Chrisopher Toadhunter!”

“I mean your _real name_ , Arnold J.,” Lister said. Arnold just stared at him, appearing thoroughly spooked, until Lister grinned easily at him, pulling a cigarette out of his hat. “Unless you’d prefer to just jump right to a first name basis.”

“It’s-- erm, it’s Rimmer. Arnold Judas Rimmer,” He mumbled, looking absolutely perturbed.

“Rimmer? No wonder you prefer Toadhunter,” Lister laughed. Rimmer’s cheeks reddened slightly.

“Shut up! And there is no _any_ -name basis between us-- you’re just a Mimian taxi driver and I’m just a passenger. That’s it. So just forget we ever had this conversation.”

“If you insist, mate.” Lister took the cash and thumbed it, surveying the surrounding area as he did so. “You know, I can just wait out here for you,  so you don’t have to flag down another taxi.”

“Why on Io would I get back into a hopper with you after almost getting killed on the way here?” Rimmer asked. Lister pointed out the windshield at a couple of pimps wearing thick fur jackets, casually smoking cigars on the other side of the road and glaring at the hopper with unmasked curiosity. Rimmer swallowed loudly.

“You, uh-- you can wait here,” Rimmer agreed.

“Sure thing,” Lister said, flicking off the overhead light as Rimmer climbed out of the hopper and hurriedly made his way into the nearest android brothel. Lister yawned, pulling a cigarette out of his hat and sticking it into his mouth. He observed the pimps out of the corner of his eye while he lit the end of the cigarette, relieved to watch them wander away with apparently lost interest. He locked the doors to the hopper anyway, just to be safe, and laid his head back, exhaling smoke and flicking on the radio. The stereo knob was broken, which meant that only one station was available, and it was a smooth jazz station. As Frank Sinatra sang a love ballad quietly through the hopper’s tinny speakers, Lister laid his head back, sighing with content, and closed his eyes for a quick snooze while his passenger enjoyed himself in an android brothel. He wouldn’t remember his dreams, but they greatly consisted of brown curls and long fingers.

\--

Lister awoke to find that twilight had fallen whilst he’d been waiting for Rimmer. He yawned, stretching his hands above his head, and observed the rather extensive passerby that had formed on the streets. Most were drunk, many were laughing, though none of them, he saw, was his awaited-for passenger.

Unbuckling his seat belt, Lister climbed out of the hopper and, after leisurely cracking his back and neck and taking a few moments to wave at a pair of giggling hookers on the corner, began to walk towards the android brothel Rimmer had gone into.

As he approached the entrance doors, the sound of scuffling in the alleyway to his right indicated a possible struggle. Being on Mimas for the last several months, Lister knew intuitively that the safest reaction would be to continue walking, but a familiar, nasally voice forced him to stop and turn, to discover Rimmer, pinned to the wall of the brothel by a rather violent looking man.

“I don’t have any money!” Rimmer shrieked at him, yelping in pain as his head slammed none too gently against the brick wall behind him. Lister grabbed the man by his collar, practically throwing him to the side. He recognized the bloodshot eyes, the stumbling gait of a Bliss Freak. He saw Rimmer’s wallet laying on the ground beside him, and taking pity on the man in front of him, knelt down and picked the object up.

“Here,” he said, tossing a few dollars to the Bliss Freak. He snatched up the money, sprinting away and disappearing down the road.

When Lister turned back to face Rimmer, he was no longer standing-- he was mostly crouching, eyes wide and focused on mostly nothing, still shell-shocked after the whole ordeal.

“Ey, you alright?” Lister asked. He reached his hand out to grasp Rimmer’s trembling shoulder. Rimmer jolted, turning his head slowly to meet Lister’s soft gaze. His eyes were wide, shining with fear. He licked his lips nervously.

“I- I’m fine,” Rimmer said shakily as Lister helped him to his feet. Lister didn’t believe him for a second, but allowed him to pull away anyway. He brushed his uniform roughly, smoothing the rumpled edges vigorously. Lister watched him quietly, guiltily twiddling his thumbs.

“… You sure?” Lister asked eventually. Rimmer shot him a sour look, folding his arms crossly.

“Yes, I am,” Rimmer snapped techily. “Quite sure.”

There was a loud, shattering crash from behind and Rimmer yelped, flailing to grab onto Lister and maneuver him in front. A stray cat sprinted past Lister’s feet, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Rimmer demanded, nagging at Lister’s shoulder. “Can I help it if I’m a little skittish? I just had a near-death experience, for Io’s sake! Also, you gave all of my money away!”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Lister agreed, turning to face him. “I’m sorry. How about I make it up to you?”

“Er… excuse me?”

Lister reached into his back pocket, proffering Rimmer his wallet. “I got a bit of spare change. There’s a bar down the road that sells good lager for pretty cheap.”

Rimmer eyed him suspiciously. “And why exactly do you want to buy me a drink?”

Lister shrugged. “I don’t like drinking alone, but I’ve got about no friends on this moon.”

“And… you’d rather drink with me, than alone?” Rimmer asked, as if to clarify. Lister grinned, nodding at him.

“Absolutely. Come on, man, we gotta get going if we want to make it before dark.” Rimmer followed Lister dubiously down the road, and Lister smiled all the way.

\--

The pair stumbled out of the bar draped over each other, Rimmer’s liquor-tinged breath warm on Lister’s face. If they’d looked out into space they would have seen a beautiful sight; Jupiter spanning the night sky in a marvelous stretch of red and orange. But they were too preoccupied with each other to notice the planet overhead.

Lister had one hand knotted in the shoulder of Rimmer’s formerly well ironed jacket, dragging him into the alley beside the bar entrance. Staggering to a halt, he pulled Rimmer around and pressed him against the wall, fumbling with the fancy buttons on his jacket as he pressed his face into the junction between Rimmer’s shoulder and neck.

“What’re you doin-g?” Rimmer mumbled with little conviction and much slur, his hands placed chastely on Lister’s shoulders as Lister fought the clasps of his jacket that quite rudely blocked flesh from flesh.

“Takin’ advantage of ya in yer drunken stupor,” Lister replied, his voice muffled against Rimmer’s soft skin. Rimmer grunted compliantly, though both of them were too drunk to consent to a stomach pump, much less what Lister had in mind. He opened his mouth and licked a slow, deliberate trail along Rimmer’s neck. The man shuddered beneath him and moaned, practically sinking to the ground, but Lister held him up against the wall firmly.

Topcoat finally devoid of all offending buckles and fasteners, Lister’s hands slid their way up and under Rimmer’s undershirt, feeling soft, pliable skin tingling beneath his touch. Rimmer’s head rolled back and he let out another groan, his grip loosening on Lister’s shoulders and sliding up to cup his head in his hands. The sensation of cold fingers digging into his hair made Lister shiver pleasantly, and he sucked happily at Rimmer’s neck until the skin beneath his mouth was warm and wet and sensitive. He ran his upper lip along Rimmer’s Adam’s apple, feeling the vibration of his abbreviated gasps as Lister’s hands ran races along his body.

With a desperate moan, Lister dropped to his knees in front of Rimmer. The man made as if to follow him down, but Lister would have none of it, gripping Rimmer’s hips tightly and holding him firmly topside. Pressing his head into Rimmer’s abdomen and using his teeth, Lister fought rather gracelessly with the button on Rimmer’s pants for a good five minutes, somewhat dampening the mood. But Rimmer, by that point, was so far gone that he only whimpered and pulled consolingly at Lister’s braids whenever Lister made a particularly frustrated growl or butted into Rimmer’s hip with his forehead.

Finally, he managed to undo the button of Rimmer’s pants, as well as do away with the zipper. He found that he had nearly no trouble at all getting Rimmer’s underwear down to his knees. Nearly, in the sense that Rimmer was dead hard, and Lister came to the very definite conclusion that there was no physical reason why Rimmer shouldn’t have everyone interested in the male sex lining up for a go at him.

Lister’s favorite on-the-go sex position was the ever enjoyable blow job, due to the fact that there was literally absolutely no feasible way for either party to get pregnant from it, and also because you didn’t need any kind lube aside from your own saliva. Of course, it was still entirely possible for STDs and such to pass from one person to another, and thinking more about it Lister might have conceded that it was a possibility that that was the reason Rimmer visited brothels with android hookers instead of real ones. Then again, Lister was extremely drunk, and didn’t have enough cognitive brain function left to give this possibility any more thought. He decided to leave it to chance and, since his luck was usually relatively good (aside from getting stuck on Mimas six months ago), he reasoned that he didn’t have too much to worry about.

Wetting his lips, Lister sucked in the head of Rimmer’s cock, earning a whole-body shudder from the man and a firm tug on his braids. He let out a breathless laugh, more eager than he usually was to perform on this end of the activity. He licked along the shaft slowly, savoring every subtle flavor, every shocked twitch and mindless whine of his trembling lover. Lover… that was a new word, one he rarely used to describe sex partners. But this felt different than other times, when it was rushed and desperate-- not to say that they weren’t both desperate and in a hurry to ease said desperation. But, Lister thought mindfully as he licked the tip of Rimmer’s cock and again gently sucked the head into his mouth, this felt like something… different.

The sound of Rimmer’s breathy, needy whines made Lister even hungrier. He took in as much of the man as he could handle, and almost gagged as Rimmer thrust into his mouth harshly.

“S-sorry,” Rimmer’s soft gasp carried down to Lister’s ears as long, trembling fingers ran through his hair apologetically, and had his mouth not been full of dick at the time, Lister would have smiled. He knew from experience--on both sides--that it was easy to forget not to thrust into an unsuspecting man’s mouth; Lister appreciated that Rimmer was not that kind of lover.

“S’okay,” Lister mumbled around Rimmer’s dick, and the man’s knees practically knocked together from the sensation. His grip in Lister’s hair tightened, but he kept his hips steady, offering only the occasional pleasured groan or murmur to let Lister know that it was all smooth sailing on his end. Lister’s own cock was pressed determinedly against the rough fabric of his pants, demanding attention, but Lister was so enraptured by the fingers massaging his head, guiding him subtly to move him just the way his lover liked it, Lister couldn’t have cared less about his own needs. When Rimmer tensed, muttering something about coming soon, Lister was half tempted to stick around and have a taste. But even in his drunken oblivion he knew that such a task would not be nearly as easy or enjoyable as he liked to imagine (at the very least not in a dark alley, half blind and completely drunk), and he pulled away and let Rimmer finish himself.

Lister watched for a few moments, fascinated by Rimmer’s long fingers sliding around his own erection, before raising a hand and wrapping it over Rimmer’s, helping to stroke Rimmer out until he came, moaning, and collapsed onto the ground, his head slumping into Lister’s lap.

“That…” was all Rimmer managed to say; Lister felt inclined to agree. He pulled his fingers gently through Rimmer’s soft curls until they were mussed hopelessly out of their strict attention, and hummed a tuneless rhyme while Rimmer lay dazed, staring up at the rusted fire escape above them. A late night breeze whispered quietly past them, giving Lister chills.

“S’gettin’ cold,” Lister murmured eventually. He felt Rimmer’s gentle nod of agreement, and eventually found the motivation to pull the man up out of his lap and scoot up the wall to his feet. “Wanna go back to the taxi?” Lister asked. Rimmer swayed on his feet, a still present ‘o’ utter surprise on his face. Lister reached out and brushed his hand over it, feeling the soft, clean shaven skin beneath his hand. Rimmer turned his head into the hand, looking into Lister’s eyes with an intensity so soft Lister suddenly felt he could finally understand the otherwise indefinable term ‘soft grunge’. Rimmer nodded.

They managed to stumble their way back to the hopper, which had remained luckily unvandalized, and Rimmer crawled into the backseat, flopping onto his back and turning to look up at Lister.

“You coming?” He asked. Lister observed the man’s disheveled, unkempt uniform, muddled hair, and grinned a slow, wide grin. He climbed into the taxi, shutting the door behind him. After a small bit of struggle, during which one of them accidentally kicked the stereo on, Lister eventually managed to come to rest comfortably on top of Rimmer, somewhat breathless and newly reawakened to the fact that he was still quite hard. Rimmer noticed this as well, and shivered pleasantly beneath them.

“I’m drunk,” Rimmer informed him as he fumbled with Lister’s trouser buttons and Louis Armstrong played the trumpet melodically in the background. Lister, equally as drunk but quite a bit more erect than his companion, registered the statement with dazed slowness, eventually bringing his hand down to wrap it around Rimmer’s and slow his work.

“You don’t have to-- if you don’t wanna--” Lister tried, finding it rather difficult to convince Rimmer that there was no obligation for him to do anything with one hand wrapped around his cock and his tongue casually mapping out the inside of Lister’s mouth. He realized that this meant they were kissing. They hadn’t done that before. Kissing was definitely new. It was also definitely quite pleasant, and Lister rather hoped that Rimmer didn’t want to dispel with it any time in the near future.

“I want to,” Rimmer muttered into Lister’s mouth, impatiently beginning to stroke Lister’s pulsing cock, to which Lister had no protests. “But I’m really drunk. And I don’t have a condom. And I don’t see any lube around here, which is a fairly important component, so possibly it would be best not to try that this time around.”

Lister’s already malfunctioning brain eventually came to the conclusion that Rimmer was expecting him to top, as in, _top_ , and he trembled with pleasure at the thought. He dipped his head down again, pulling Rimmer into another long, deliberately deep kiss.

“Maybe next time, then?” Lister suggested, bending down to lick and nip at Rimmer’s neck, as he had before. Rimmer moaned, the angelic sound almost enough to make Lister come without a thought.

“Next time sounds absolutely fantastic, miladdo,” Rimmer whispered, biting softly at Lister’s ear. “Abso-smegging-utely.”

Abso-smegging-lutely.

Lister came into Rimmer’s hand as they whispered sweet nothings into one another’s ears and fell asleep in each other’s arms, soft jazz humming quietly about them.

 


End file.
